The Jest Medicine: The Power of Humor, Playfulness, and Joy in Healthcare and Recovery

Video Transcription

Steve Kerschke: Just Medicine. We are going to be talking about the power of humor, playfulness, and joy in healthcare and recovery. Those of you who are new to our webinar, real quick about QLI, so we are based in Omaha, Nebraska, post-acute rehab program as well as an outpatient tele-rehab program. And we specialize in traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, small chronic pain program, limb loss, and stroke. And we are just glad to be here for another month in our webinar series. We’re excited to talk about this topic today. Every year we try to put on new topics, and this particular one was the brainchild of John, who I’m going to introduce here in just a second.

But before we do so, reminder, use the Q&A for questions. We know that some of you want CEUs. These are CCMC CEUs only. If that does not apply to you, we apologize, but thank you again for joining. We will do a Q&A and poll question at the end. The poll question, please answer. And that is one way to get your CEUs. And then upon leaving, just a reminder that’s going to prompt you to submit feedback to the webinar and then you’ll automatically receive your slides and the CEU credit for those that need it. But next, well, first of all, Don Terry’s in studio.

Don Terry: Good morning, everyone.

Steve Kerschke: This was

Don Terry: Yesterday.

Steve Kerschke: Beatles Day yesterday. In the spirit of having fun.

Don Terry: Don Lennon was in the house.

Steve Kerschke: Don Lennon was in the house. This was up on our east campus, right?

John Pearson: Yes.

Steve Kerschke: Looking good.

John Pearson: We did get one more, believe it or not, but this is so funny that somebody couldn’t hear the audio, but I think I may have remedied it. So I’m hoping the mics are coming through.

Steve Kerschke: Perfect.

John Pearson: So let us know in the chat if you guys cannot hear everybody clearly. So who’s this guy?

Steve Kerschke: This is, well, it’s you, John, first of all. Look

John Pearson: Look at that.

Steve Kerschke: This is, first of all –

John Pearson: I never noticed what my belt buckle says the devil made me do it. Just noticed that because it’s on a big screen.

John Pearson: Your wardrobe.

John Pearson: That was in my wardrobe.

Steve Kerschke: I will say whenever I need an outfit, you are one of the first people that I think of.

John Pearson: You’ve worn that jacket before, I think.

Steve Kerschke: I think I’ve worn your cowboy boots.

John Pearson: Nice. Snakeskin.

Steve Kerschke: Snakeskin. You’re beautiful.

John Pearson: I got the Salvation Armani.

Steve Kerschke: Well, I just want to introduce John Pearson. John, just an amazing creative person, director of creativity at QLI. And as I mentioned, when we were talking about a potential topic, he’s always one of my first people that I go to when I think about an amazing presenter to have on our webinar. And this topic, it was one of the ones that was on your mind, John.

John Pearson: Yeah. And there’s a story behind this picture too, right? So you, not to throw you under the bus, but I think the night before you had a presentation, you were like, “Hey, what do you got in your wardrobe? Can you be a character for this presentation I’m doing?” It’s good content, but it’s kind of dry the night before. You said, “Can you be Johnny Goulet?” Which is one of the characters that I’ve been before. He’s a washed up Vegas lounge singer. I’m like, “I don’t have any of the Johnny Goulet stuff. I don’t have the wig, the mustache.” I said, “But let me see what I got in the closet.” And then I threw all this together and you didn’t know.

Steve Kerschke: Well, I didn’t even know who

John Pearson: Had no idea.

Steve Kerschke: I just trusted that you were going to deliver the fun – So we

John Pearson: Started off the presentation and there’s another picture there that shows just Rawhide Randy was the character and all his glory there. And that’s on our Equisizer, which is in our adaptive sports, that’s our horse simulator. So I had somebody pull me in on that and came into the room as Rawhide Randy to the Rawhide theme music. Ed him up, move them out

Steve Kerschke: It’s amazing what we pulled together in about, I don’t know, three hours.

John Pearson: Yeah, kind of like this presentation. No, we’ve spent at least four hours on this. So yeah, but to give you credit, you knew that the content was good, but that it needed what I call kind of a spice. And so if you want to grab people’s attention, you want them to get engaged, then some humor and inject some play. I didn’t come up with these games. We don’t even remember what the presentation was, but you already had some games and play involved with it and just Rawhide Randy just was the commentator.

Steve Kerschke: Well, I think a credit to you. The other thing we had talked about is you’ve developed the skill that we’re going to talk about. We believe that most things in life are a skill and humor and fun and playfulness falls into that category for us. So we are unashamedly saying we think all of these things are a skill. And I trusted that because you have practiced this extensively.

John Pearson: Not Rawhide Randy.

Steve Kerschke: No Rawhide Randy, but the general

John Pearson: Playfulness and the only appearance ever.

Steve Kerschke: But I trusted that on short notice that you had the skill to deliver this.

John Pearson: Right. And it’s not just that I’m some. I’ve been here for almost 30 years and so we’ve done lots of fun, goofy things. And so I’ve practiced that, exercised that muscle of like, okay, we’ll come up with something, we’ll play it by ear. And it actually made it more fun. We’re going to talk about risk reward. And so that’s like when you go through humor, you’re like, okay, what’s the risk here? And having me come in, you had a lot of trust, but you have an uncensored Rawhide Randy coming into the room yelling, how y’all doing? Rawhide Randy’s here.

I remember there was, we didn’t talk about this, but there was a row of students that were visiting and they were in the back and I come rolling in. Nobody knows I’m coming in. And I look down off my horse and look at their faces and the look of just. It wasn’t horror, but it was like, what in the world is happening here? I thought I was coming to a lunch and learn and who is this goofball? And I may have made comments about my saddle sores and asked for a nurse. I mean, there is obviously some risk when you have Rawhide Randy come in, but hopefully the reward was worth getting people engaged.

Steve Kerschke: Well, speaking of new faces, we have Brielle today.

Brielle: Hello

Steve Kerschke: Brie is our new OT on our telerehab team. She’s probably thinking the same thing about you. She’s met you two days ago and she’s seen you in this context and I’ve done a ton of PR for you outside of it, just so you know.

John Pearson: Well, there you go. Thank you. I’m not tooting my own horn, but I do think this just dawned on me. We don’t honestly remember what the content of the presentation is, but we do remember Rawhide Randy.

Steve Kerschke: We do.

John Pearson: So just to illustrate the point.

Steve Kerschke: And then before we move on, Laura, thanks for being in town today. Laura- Laura’s in the house. Actually on campus today. We love it when she comes in from Denver.

John Pearson: She has a 10-minute standup routine she’s going to do a little bit later. She doesn’t know that.

Steve Kerschke: All right. Should we get – Because

John Pearson: We’re going to run out of time. This is going to go so fast.

Steve Kerschke: Who is this guy?

John Pearson: Okay. Steve knows that the older I get. My microphone’s covering my face, which is probably not a bad thing. The older that I get, the longer my stories become. So I’ve been here 30 years. This story’s probably 27, 28 years old. So I’m going to try to really condense it, I promise. So I was working, I thought it was kind of a big deal. I was a newly appointed department head. We haven’t had those in years. I had two part-time staff members on the team, one of whom was going out on maternity leave. Her name was Sue. And she said, “Hey, I’m looking to get my schedule covered. I’m working with Ken. Can you take over my times?” I work with him twice a week. And I’m like, “Yeah, you and Ken seem like you have a great time. What are we working on? Computer skills.” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll take that over.” So Sue’s out.

I go with Ken. Ken is older than me at the time. He’s a farmer and a truck driver, has a CDL license, rural Nebraska. His sweet wife, Pat, is always by his side, every therapy. So I jump in and we start doing computer skills and I’m like, “All right, Ken.” She had told me what he was working on, his typing speed, whatnot. Didn’t even strike me of like, “Okay, why are we doing computer skills with a farmer?” But that’s what we were doing. That was the rehab. So I work with Ken and he’s not participating. He’s pretty well shut down. His wife’s there. I’m thinking, “We got to make the most of this time.” So I start to push, “All right, Ken. Okay, I need you to listen to me. Ken, go ahead and put your hands up on the keyboard.” And instead of putting the hands on the keyboard, he picked the key and he smashed it onto the desk and then he shut down.

And of course his wife’s there. I’m mortified. I don’t know quite what to do. About three sessions, it’s nothing but a battle. We get nothing done. And he’s frustrated and he doesn’t like me obviously, and I am embarrassed to have his wife there. I pull her aside after three sessions of getting nothing accomplished and I say, “Pat, what am I doing wrong?” She says, “Maybe take some time to get to know him.” What a profound though. So I just jumped right in and had this guy work on computer skills. I said, “That’s a really good idea. Tell me about Ken.” And she told me all about his life. She told me all about her husband, about their family, about where he grew up, about their farm, how much he loves gardening. And one of the things I remember she said is that he loves Looney Tunes cartoons.

I said, “Really? He loves Looney Tunes cartoons? He loves them. Oh my gosh.” I said, who’s his favorite? Marvin the Martian, this guy. I make a note. And the next session, we don’t do computer skills. We don’t even go anywhere near the computer. We sit out, and I can remember where we were sitting out here in the commons, and I sit down with Ken and I said, “Hey, Ken, we’re going to take a break from computer skills, and I’m sorry that I haven’t even taken the time to get to know you. Pat has told me all about you, about your family and about your work and about the things that you really enjoy.” She told me that an interesting fact about you, that you like Looney Tunes cartoons, and it doesn’t respond. His head’s down. I said, “Ken, if you don’t look up and look me in the eye right now, I’m going to shoot you with my disintegrating Reagan.” And he didn’t look up, but I could see him shaking like this.

And then he looked up and it was like the sun came out. It was a Ken that I had never seen. He was smiling, laughing, giving eye contact. Now, I’m not painting the picture that I’m Patch Adams and some miracle worker. That’s something that I should have done at day one, not three frustrating sessions later. But sometimes those old stories stick with you because they’re formative, they’re lessons that you learn. And the lesson there was, yes, we had important work to do. We had rehab to do, but the most important thing and what will turbocharge that rehab is to build a relationship and find common ground. We never did computer skills again because it just didn’t make sense. We didn’t really do that analysis, but Ken and I were good from that day forth. That wasn’t the only thing, but that was the door. That’s what opened the door.

Find Common Ground

So yeah, it definitely is a way, humor, play, it breaks down walls and it makes connections. I was thinking in the shower this morning of another story that I never would’ve thought of. It happened yesterday, just about 24 hours ago, right outside the door here. I was walking out of the studio and Ed, who’s in charge of our adaptive sports, he pulls me, I hear his voice and he beckons me over. He’s with Tony. Tony is in our spinal cord injury program. He has a high level quadriplegic injury. Tony is a biologist, and this has been a rough injury. Imagine a guy that just was independent. I mean, he just went out in the field on his own and he studied nature and now here he is and he’s using a power wheelchair and he’s using a head array system to drive that chair. Ed pulls me over and I look and I assess the situation and I can see that Tony, understandably, it seems like he’s not having a good day.

Ed says, “Did you hear we’re getting a trail cam?” Perfect for Tony. He’s a biologist. I’m like, “No, I didn’t hear about this.” He said, “Yeah, we’re going to get a trail cam, but we need your help because we’re already thinking, I want you to imagine it’s Easter and what do we see on the trail cam?” I said, “The Easter bunny?” And they’re like, “Yeah.” And then Tony’s not engaged yet. And I said, “What about Bigfoot?” Tony then looks up and he said, “Oh yeah, we’ve already been thinking about Bigfoot.” So he’s starting to get engaged. He’s actually interested in the trail cam, but it’s the sense of play that’s getting him more engaged. I look down and I see Tony has a Pillsbury Doughboy t-shirt on, and the Pillsbury Doughboy is right on his belly. I looked down and I said, “Tony, you have no idea.” And he said, “What?

You have no idea how. I don’t have much self-restraint, but it is so hard for me right now to control the impulse to poke you in the belly and go…” And he didn’t laugh, but he smiled. And I’m guessing it was the first time that he had smiled that morning. So I’m going to hold that story and we’ll break that down a little bit later. I would’ve never thought of that story had I not known we were going to talk about this today, but I want to come back to that when we talk about the importance of humor and play. There’s three mics, so jump in.

Steve Kerschke: Yeah, this is still your slide, but I think what strikes me with that story is the fact that within probably five minutes, I don’t know how well you know Tony, but you think.

John Pearson: Tony and I are good.

Steve Kerschke: Yeah. You’re good, but even if you weren’t good, my guess is you would’ve figured out how to incorporate this, just knowing you and watching your style. Because I think that this slide, I love this picture.

John Pearson: I wrote that on the board.

Steve Kerschke: We said we spent four hours on this presentation. I probably spent three and a half on just finding cool photos that you took. By the way, for those of you who don’t know John or if we hadn’t said this, all the photos that you see in this presentation were taken by John.

John Pearson: Except for the ones with Rawhide Randy.

Steve Kerschke: That’s true.

John Pearson: Unless Rawhide Randy wasn’t really me.

Steve Kerschke: Yeah. Well, and Marvin the Martian. That’s the only stock photo. That’s true. But anyways, this photo, I think, the comply or die, I just laugh every time I see it. And this person that you see has probably one of the most serious jobs that we have.

John Pearson: She’s our compliance specialist, Emily.

Steve Kerschke: Right. Emily is our compliance specialist, but she probably has one of the funniest senses of humor that I’ve ever seen.

John Pearson: And she incorporates that humor and that play into her classes. Imagine going to some of these like, “All right, time for your annual infection control update.” Procedures on health and safety, all of that. That stuff is just dry. So she’s really good about incorporating humor and play into those, for sure.

Steve Kerschke: But I also remember you telling me about this same similar presentation that you gave to a different group who it was a little bit conflictual, right?

John Pearson: I don’t know. I was reading it, maybe I was misreading it. It was to PhD level clinical psychologists, and it wasn’t so much the students. These are folks that are almost done with their PhD. They were really saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no, no. You don’t inject humor into a counseling session. You don’t inject humor into times when people or play.”

Don Terry: That is if you don’t know how to do it.

John Pearson: I think so, right? And I think what they’re doing is they’re thinking, “We’ll talk about risk-reward.” They’re thinking only the risk, like how much damage you could do to that relationship and how that could backfire. And there is a subtlety to that risk reward for sure. And I think my retort is, and we talked about this, that if you think about the most powerful eulogies you have ever heard in your life during the saddest time, which is a funeral, those powerful eulogies at some point had a touch of humor that the entire room was filled with laughter and it was appropriate and it was well-timed and it was sensitive, but it was super powerful. And so I always say, if we can do it at a funeral, then I think we can do it in rehab. We can do it with Tony, but there is a subtlety that we’ll talk about.

And it isn’t fluff. I was also thinking it certainly isn’t. It’s like cooking with a meal. I was thinking this this morning. It’s like the spice. And so no meal, you don’t want any meal that’s all spice. And we do know people in our lives that are trying to be funny all the time and they’re exhausting and you don’t build a deep relationship with them because there’s no substance. So what we’re talking about isn’t the entire meal, but often I think in rehab and recovery, the meal is bland.

Yes, the ingredients are there, but it’s missing the spice. And so what we’re talking about today is how to add the spice to really liven up things and do more than that too, for sure.

The Upside of LOL – Physiological

Steve Kerschke: Well, before we jump in a little bit more on, I guess, the how do you do it and even break down some of the barriers to it, it’s also important that we talk about the fact that there’s research behind this, and we know that laughter is a powerful tool. We even put in this slide that it’s medicine, but there’s really four ways that we can see that medicine be put to work, and we’re going to talk a little bit more about that. But I loved being able to go find. Actually, Dr. Jeff Snell found it, and so I went to Snell’s library and we did find some research that really backs this up in healthcare, which I loved seeing. So the physiological aspects, and those of you who joined our biohacking webinar, if you remember us talking about the vagus nerve, the vagus nerve can actually be stimulated by laughter, which plays.

John Pearson: I thought you were going to say gambling.

Steve Kerschke: No. Well, that too.

John Pearson: Vagus nerve. Did it, Don? Sorry. Sorry.

Don Terry: Double down.

John Pearson: Double down on it. That’s good. Don’s good at this.

Steve Kerschke: Oh, I can’t wait till we play

John Pearson: Again. Oh man, that’s good. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Steve Kerschke: But the vagus nerve is stimulated by lots of different things, but laughter and humor being one of them. And again, if you remember the vagus nerve discussion, it’s this parasympathetic, sympathetic connection that really drives a lot of the physiological benefits that you get from stimulating the vagus nerve. So we do see benefits in the immune system. We see this reduction in anxiety and depression and fear. The other thing that I noticed in the research was it was talking about it from the perspective of someone who infuses humor, but also by the receiver of the humor. So if you are someone who does enjoy having fun and does seek some level of playfulness, you get the benefit. And then the partner in that or the group in that who receives it and is on the other end is also getting that. So I thought that that connection was really interesting.

John Pearson: Well, we have a slide later about how it affects the culture too and that’s very similar to that, right?

Steve Kerschke: Yeah.

John Pearson: Doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Happens with other human beings.

Steve Kerschke: Yeah, so there’s actual changes in the neurotransmitter release. So this release of cortisol and epinephrine is decreased. So when you have people who have high stress, high anxiety, likely there’s this increase in cortisol and epinephrine level and release, and so you see that start to decrease. And then that dopaminergic reward system is that relationship between the sympathetic and parasympathetic system.

John Pearson: Dopaminergic.

Steve Kerschke: Yeah, say that one.

John Pearson: I’m going to use that. Everyone use that in just a random conversation today.

Steve Kerschke: Figuring out how to make a pun out of it.

John Pearson: Dopaminergic.

Steve Kerschke: Come on, Don.

John Pearson: Don now, that’s a hard one.

Don Terry: If you can’t pronounce it, it’s hard to –

John Pearson: Dopaminergic. It’s a fun word to say, dopaminergic. Dopaminergic. I got it.

Steve Kerschke: But John, you take this one. I think –

John Pearson: Hey, wait a minute. Look who’s on the screen.

Steve Kerschke: Oh, hi, Katie.

The Upside of LOL – Cognitive/Educational

John Pearson: Hey, that’s Don’s. I didn’t even realize that until. Yeah, I think Steve knew that. I knew that. He knew that. So that’s Don’s daughter, Katie. Katie’s working at QLI this summer. Proud dad. Very cool. Look at her. She’s learning. So again, back to the Rawhide Randy. I mean, that didn’t even occur to me, but we don’t really remember the content of the class legitimately, but we do remember Rawhide Randy. And so it does promote, it increases, it focuses our attention. It makes us more alert. It makes us want to learn. I mean, if you have a dynamic engaging teacher or coach, you’re going to be more motivated. Facts and figures, data and graphs, we just don’t remember that stuff, but we do remember stories and we do remember the sense of play for sure.

Steve Kerschke: Well, I mean, it’s summer, but my kids start school here and whatever, not soon enough. Hopefully maybe the next six weeks school will go by strikingly fast. But anyways, my youngest George is going to be going into fourth grade and I was like, “Hey dude, who do you want in fourth grade for your teacher?” And he’s like, “Well, if I could have Ms. Bernie –

John Pearson: Ms. Bernie.

Steve Kerschke: She’s the one.” And it ended up being because she’s really fun, she’s not showing facts and figures, but they are engaged differently and word travels fast in elementary school about what teacher you want and what teacher you don’t. And even Brie, you just came from school, right? I’m guessing you had similar experiences with your teachers.

Brie: Yeah, definitely.

John Pearson: And it’s so important that it increases motivation that we put it on there twice. So that’s how important it is.

Steve Kerschke: Thanks for catching that.

John Pearson: Yeah, you bet. And then it increases creativity. We’re going to play, hopefully if we have time, we’re going to play a quick round of a game that we actually use in our social media and our development team to just get the creative juices flowing. So if we’ve got a task of we’re writing an ad or we’re coming up with an e-blast subject line and content, we might play this game just to spark that creativity.

Don Terry: Don’t share too many secrets, John.

The Upside of LOL – Relational

John Pearson: Oh, right. That’s right. And then of course, there’s this relational aspect of it. So if you think about the people who are closest in your lives, you have stories, fun stories, funny stories. There’s this connectivity that we have with the favorite people, the people that are most important in our world, and there’s always interwoven in that is a sense of humor and play. I don’t want to make this all about making jokes. I think there’s this element of play that we can talk about that isn’t always maybe it’s fun, but it’s maybe a little different than making a joke.

Don Terry: I think it pulls back the curtain on just the depth of our approach and how other people can share that skill to improve everyday life.

John Pearson: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you go back to the Tony example, that was Ed recognizing that Tony needed a boost, and so let’s all engage in this conversation about this play, that what we could do with this trail cam. And so that was really smart of Ed to recognize that here’s somebody that knows Tony and let’s invite him in and let’s all have this conversation. It was as a group of friends really, and then how it improves your quality of life and self-esteem. There’s so many things that obviously that are benefits from using play and humor for sure.

Steve Kerschke: Well, and I think with the relational, the thing that I’m thinking about too is I’m guessing Ed didn’t script that necessarily, but when he came upon you, he put it on the T to a degree, right? He set you up for the scenario. I was even thinking, it was College World Series last week, and I had a couple buddies in town from college. We don’t really do a great job of keeping in touch, but inevitably we were sitting around the fire pit and cracking jokes about things that happened 20 years ago. Yeah, right.

John Pearson: No, those are the shared stories.

Steve Kerschke: You get this repetition and you know the type of humor that someone might have and you start to play off each other, and it was wild how quickly it just came back. I think when you have that deep relationship, you start to play off each other and things really snowball quickly.

John Pearson: Yeah. No, I mean, it is really interesting that. And again, back to the Tony and Ed, could you imagine if I went up to that situation and Ed was setting me up and like, yeah, about the Easter Bunny, what if I would’ve said, “Well, that seems like a stupid waste of money and time.”

Don Terry: The Easter Bunny doesn’t exist.

John Pearson: Yeah, there’s no Easter bunny. This is ridiculous. I mean, can you imagine that I would’ve done damage, right? So Ed had faith that I was going to obviously participate in the play. Don’t be a Donnie Downer. You’re not a Donny Downer.

The Upside of LOL – Cultural

Steve Kerschke: All right, so we’re talking about culture too. I’m fortunate to be part of QLI and just have such a deep integration into this part of our culture. I think it really is a big piece of who we are, and you just told a story that even 20 years ago, 25 years ago, it was part of the thread between people here. So it’s such a cool thing to be a part of that, but it just doesn’t happen overnight.

John Pearson: And it doesn’t happen unintentionally. It is with intent. So one of our leadership actions, and we used to have leadership principles until we realized that leadership is actually a verb, and so we rewrote them into leadership actions, and one of them that is not a throwaway is work hard, play hard. So leaders understand the power of play. They understand the power of humor. And yes, we have serious, important, powerful work that we have to do, but it cannot be devoid of joy and laughter. And so that is baked into our leadership and our culture. What envisions and builds culture, it’s leadership. And so even this picture, I love all these pictures because they have a story. So that’s Pato, and Pato, he was a great kid, and he was in our spinal cord injury program, and I knew we were going to do this photo shoot because we wanted to do just an updated team photo, and I was like, “That’d be awesome if we could get Pato up there.” So I said, “Pato, we’re doing a photo shoot.

You want to come up and be a part of it?” Sure. So wheeled his chair, they got him up. Those are two are guys from our maintenance crew was lifting him up.

So much of it is spontaneous and in the flow, and that wasn’t weeks of planning. And then Sarah is, you can see her behind Tim with his raised arm, that’s his PT or his OT. I was like, “Okay, Sarah, I just want to make sure he’s safe, so what’s this going to look like?” So it wasn’t just total haphazard, but with a little bit of planning, we made that photo happen. So it’s a huge part of the culture. And I think the takeaway for maybe people that are listening, if you’re selecting providers, I don’t think that this is just a oh, by the way, or a throw in. I think you should be asking, “Hey, talk to me about the culture of the place.” Because I always think if the people that are there don’t want to work there, why would anyone ever want to receive services there?

That’s just a no-brainer. I don’t know how often we consider that, even as patients. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment later, and I certainly did research. I got a recommendation from Steve, and he’s very recommended in terms of his skill, but I don’t know anything about the culture of the office, and I’ll know more when I go there today, but I think it is something that we should be investigating.

Steve Kerschke: Well, and the fight’s burnout, back to the research that also showed up in the research. It was, again, talking about the give and the take, but it was saying that many of the clinicians who incorporate play and humor, they love their job more. So it goes to the engagement And it goes to the outcomes. And not only healthcare, but even many of our listeners, the work that we do is not easy and it can become a bit more mundane from day to day. And that humor is the spice and it helps fight burnout. And so the research is definitely backing that up.

The Fun Police: Why We Don’t Use Humor

John Pearson: All right. Okay. This is where I think people. I don’t even know where to jump into it because I have lots of thoughts about this. The first one, I’m not funny. I hear that all the time. Well, I’m not funny. I’m not funny. The truth is when you were in kindergarten and if somebody would’ve walked into your class, let me think back to when you were five years old and somebody would’ve walked into your class and said, “Raise your hand if you think you’re funny.” Every kid’s hand shoots up. Every kid, every kid’s hand. So there was a point in your life, if you’re one of these people that says, “Well, I’m just not funny.” You were funny. You believed you were funny at some point, but somewhere along the line you lost it. It got squeezed out of you. And because life became more serious, maybe there was a parent that said – Straighten up.

Straighten up, stop joking around. Maybe there was a coach, maybe there was a teacher. And this gets squeezed out of us. And so there was a point, back to Steve’s comment that being funny and being playful is a skill. It is a skill. And we’ll break down some of that, but if you’re there saying I’m not funny, you can become funny. You can practice the skill. It’s like tennis or chess really funnier. They can become more playful.

Steve Kerschke: Do we want to share the audio of George? Is now a good time?

John Pearson: Yeah, right. No, I think that’s great. So this just was, I don’t know when you recorded yesterday.

Steve Kerschke: It was on the fly. The audio’s not terrific. And despite how we started, I don’t think it’s going to be an audio issue.

John Pearson: Because to me, when you played it, you can hear him understanding the elements of humor. How old is he?

Steve Kerschke: He’s nine.

John Pearson: He’s nine. So he’s breaking down, oh, this is funny. That’s why this is funny. And explaining to you, this is why it’s funny. That’s a skill. I think it’s great.

Steve Kerschke: So George is nine and our new thing is he has his joke book. And when he’s stalling to go to bed, even though it’s summer, it’s like, well, bedtime’s at 10 in the summer, dad. I’m like, “Yeah, but we still got to go to bed.” He’s like, “Well, how about some jokes before we go to bed?” So this is the thing. I don’t even know where he got the joke book, but this was the other night. I knew we were preparing for this, and so I hurried up and got the voice note on my phone out. It’s not terrific, but hopefully we can hear it.

Audio: What did the penny say you the dollar?

Steve Kerschke: What did the penny say to the dollar?

Audio: You’re rich.

Steve Kerschke: This is my wife trying to guess.

Audio: You don’t make any sense. A dollar is a dollar. It doesn’t have any sense.

John Pearson: Right? He’s explaining it and he is like, “That’s why it’s funny.” That’s great.

Steve Kerschke: There’s another one here. Now I get to participate.

Audio: Why did the policeman arrest the football player?

John Pearson: Why did the policeman arrest the football player?

Brie: He’s offsides.

John Pearson: That’s an example of not a funny punchline.

Steve Kerschke: Here’s how good I am at it too.

Audio: It’s a Football team.

John Pearson: He’s giving you a hint. It’s a football team.

Steve Kerschke: What? Tackle. Clearly not taking a hint.

John Pearson: Worse than offsides.

Audio: No, because he was a stealer.

John Pearson: He was a stealer, right? That’s good. I love it because you played that and it’s like, that’s it. How often are we exercising that muscle? Because that’s what he’s doing. And the next step for him is to start making up his own jokes. But there is this, and it’s funny that you brought that in because I was going through my voice memos the other day and I’m like, “Oh, I forgot I recorded these.” So this is an example of you’re not funny, you can bring play into the mix. You don’t have to make up. He’s not making up the jokes at that point. So I found these recordings of these in our residential setting. I’ve known Brian, he and I are very, very close and I’ve known Brian for, gosh, 27 years. And Brian has a traumatic brain injury. He was struck in 1989 by a drunk driver.

And he’s got lots of challenges, but man, he’s funny and he loves humor. So I’m just going to play one of these, but this is an example. I didn’t write this joke. Well, maybe I’ll play two, but I brought them to the table. And so here’s an example. Yeah, Brian, so I have a couple sock puppets for sale. I just hope somebody comes and takes them off my hands.

The laugh. All right, I’ll play one more. And you can really hear us laugh on this one. Brian, why can’t skeletons play church music? They don’t have any organs. He’s literally slapping his knee.

Steve Kerschke: Not to take away anything from the story, but I was thinking how funny when people have distinct laughs. So when I was thinking about preparing for this, remember Matt Clef?

John Pearson: Oh yeah, yeah.

Steve Kerschke: His laugh, but when you are around someone w has a really good laugh, it’s infectious.

John Pearson: I don’t know if that’s. Brian’s laugh is incredibly infectious. But that’s an example of you’re say, “Well, I’m not funny.” Well, I didn’t write those jokes. I just brought them in and told him. And then I send these to Brian and guess what he does? It’s kind of back to your point. He plays everyone those jokes throughout the day. And so now he’s amplifying that sense of play and humor. And then again, it goes back to the culture. So get over the it’s unprofessional. I know when I became a director, I think I went through this stage of like, okay, it’s time to drop all of that stuff, leave that behind. What with John What’s wrong with John? I remember going through a period where I think I just was really serious because I had this title all of a sudden, and that’s just silly.

The risk reward, we’ll break that down. I do think that’s an important consideration, but I also contend that most people freeze because of the risk. And whenever you’re dealing with humor especially, there’s always going to be some risk, but you have to ask yourself, is it worth the reward? So go back to Tony. And when I say, “I’m looking at your shirt, Tony, and I really want to poke your stomach and go,”

Could he have said, and he was obviously not having a great day, could he have said, “John, I’m not in the mood. Today’s not the day.” He could have, but I have in my brain what I would say back to him. And I would say, “Gosh, Tony, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had a hard day. I hope you know. Sorry. Is there anything I can do to help today?” I have a plan. I also know we’re good. We have a good relationship and I know I can loop back with him later on. So is there some risk? Yeah, there is some risk. But what was the reward? He smiled. And did it change his life? No. But did it give him a little surge maybe to have a better day?

Don Terry: I think it’s an important point just from an empathy standpoint to have that thought process ready because it helps you work through and go, “Well, this isn’t as risky as I thought it could be.”

John Pearson: Right, right. Exactly. Or how you would respond. So a lot of this, especially the risk, goes to cognitive behavioral therapy. “Oh my gosh, what would happen? What if? What if? Well gosh, what if he gets really hurt or he gets really angry at me? “Okay, so what if? What would you do if that happened? Have a plan. You almost never need to use it. If you know the person, you read the scene, you understand the relationship, you almost never need it, but you have it there in case you do. And then there’s no time, right? I mean, we have a limited amount of time. We have people here for short stays. There’s a lot of work to be done. All of this, like cooking, the spice is in the flow. You’re not taking extra time to be playful and humorous. You’re working that and weaving that into your sessions. So it doesn’t take any extra time. It’s woven into it, into the fabric of it.

Don Terry: If you look at rehab as a job, as a patient, you’re not working 24 hours a day. There’s time that you’re going to want to engage, have conversation, and there’s other elements of that that you’re able to incorporate. How was your day? And that’s a wide open time for some fun and play.

John Pearson: Right. Yes, definitely should be woven in. Sorry, Laura’s giving us a signal. Oh, am I missing something in the chat?

Steve Kerschke: She’s making fun of you, John.

John Pearson: Oh, she probably is.

Steve Kerschke: She’s teasing you. She’s having fun.

John Pearson: Oh my gosh. Stories. So this is an entirely separate presentation discussion.

Storytelling: A Powerful Tool

Steve Kerschke: I think the takeaway here and I think just given what I know we have coming, we won’t spend a lot of time on this. I think you’ve told probably 12 stories by the time we’ve gotten to this point and that’s just A, it’s part of your approach, but again, you’ve gotten really good at it and we know the science behind stories goes back to why we use humor. There’s tons of similarities in that and stories catch people’s attention and it allows people to really immersed in what’s going on. And as a result, they learn more quickly, it builds rapport. They’re almost interwoven the way that-

John Pearson: I- I think they are. I think it’s just another element. And the stories typically involve humor, even though they may be serious stories, there’s moments of levity and play as well too. So yes, we’re big on storytelling here. We believe that it’s a skill. Same thing if people say, “Oh, I’m not a good storyteller.” It’s just because you haven’t practiced. It’s like saying I’m not good at tennis. We kind of broke this down. I always know we run out of time really quickly, but again, there is such a nuance. So with the Pillsbury Doughboy comment and with Tony, you do observe and you do. There’s so many things that you have to recognize. What’s my relationship? If that was the first time that I met Tony, I’m not going to joke around about poking him in the belly.

I told Steve a story that if there’s time maybe with my dad who had no filter, zero filter. He had no filter. He never considered the relationship. Very, very intelligent person, not emotionally intelligent. So there is a good story there, but I’m telling too many stories. So if there’s time, I’ll go back to that. But you have to consider the relationship. You have to consider the environment. Self-deprecating humor when you’re poking fun at yourself is almost always safe. If you’re going to poke fun at someone else, I always envision you’re taking, even if it’s a little chip out of the bucket, so you got to replenish that bucket by being genuine. Again, it’s exhausting to be around the person that’s just joking all the time. Don’t cook with spice all the time. So we definitely don’t have time to go through this, but this is actually a book that does support that humor is a skill and breaks down all of these filters that we’re talking about, and you can see them all there.

It’s an easy read, and I love that it talks about that humor is with intent. It’s just that people aren’t just naturally funny. They have developed, whether they realize it or not, they’ve developed the muscle of being funny and being playful. And so those are the different types of humor, which is pretty cool that they break it down to that detail. And it’s named Scott Dickers.

Steve Kerschke: It’s a good book. Comedians. I don’t know if you’ve heard stories of Seinfeld. He used to take his set and do it at low budget bars, and it was a safe place for people to boot him.

John Pearson: To work it out.

Steve Kerschke: And give him feedback. So I was always just fascinated by the fact that that’s how he figured it out. And I think a lot of comedians do that.

John Pearson: Definitely.

Steve Kerschke: It’s an example of, again.

John Pearson: Oh, and then back to the other one, there’s another book that I absolutely love, and we’ve actually done workshops here at QLI based on it, and it’s Matthew Dick Storyworthy. I think we put it on the last slide, but Matthew Dick’s Storyworthy is, again, he does a great job. He’s won the moth radio story multiple, multiple times. He’s like the grand champion multiple times over, but he’s also a school teacher, so he breaks down storytelling into skills that you can actually practice. And we’ve used that book as a guide here to teach storytelling at QLI.

Steve Kerschke: We probably don’t need to spend a ton of time here, but I wonder if we get to the let’s play. So anything else you want to talk about here?

Interactive Exercises

John Pearson: Nope, that’s very similar to what we just talked about.

Okay. We didn’t have much of a net before, but we definitely don’t have any net now. Maybe we get some participation from our artists. I think so. From everybody. Everybody listening, everybody in the room. One of the stupid things that I do at home is, and my partner, Susan, she tolerates this. I’ll ask her, I’ll say, “Okay, ask Alexa to tell a joke about. Pick a topic and have her tell a joke about that topic, and then give me a minute and I’ll see if I can beat her joke on that topic.” So she reluctantly will say, “All right, Alexa, tell me a shark joke.” And then Alexa will tell the joke, and then I have one minute to beat this shark joke. So I’m like, “Okay, let’s try that here.” So everybody, if you’ve got it, we’re going to work this out. So we’re going to work this muscle and we’ll break it down a little bit.

And this is kind of the wordplay exercise, but we have another one of those too. So we want to pick a topic.

Steve Kerschke: So I got my type in Alexa, so it won’t speak to us.

John Pearson: So what do women do for a topic? Anybody have a category more specific than just animal? If it’s an animal, it’s a type of animal. If it’s a –

Steve Kerschke: Summer. We got summer.

John Pearson: Summer.

Steve Kerschke: We’re going to ask Alexa to tell us a joke about summer.

John Pearson: Yeah, let’s see if she does it. Okay. So we’re asking Alexa.

Steve Kerschke: What do bakers and sunbathers have in common?

John Pearson: What do bakers and sunbathers have in common? Get a little hot under the collar? Oh.

Steve Kerschke: Don is really

John Pearson: Good. Well, guns, that’s pretty good. Bakers and sun.

Steve Kerschke: What? Getting cooked.

John Pearson: Oh, they’re getting cooked. Laura from the cheap sheet. From the cheap seats.

Steve Kerschke: Cheap sheets or cheats.

John Pearson: Cheap sheets. Ooh, that seat, cheap sheets. Write it down.

Steve Kerschke: All right, here you go. They don’t like to burn their buns.

John Pearson: Your son would love that one.

Steve Kerschke: Very Bunny.

John Pearson: Very bunny. Very bunny. That’s very bunny.

Steve Kerschke: What do you got?

John Pearson: All right, hold on. So anyone else got it? So now the challenge is we have to beat Alexa. Now you get a minute. It’s not like you just have to boom right away. So it’s a summer joke. It’s about summer, right? And so you know how many inappropriate ones I’m filtering through three of them

Steve Kerschke: Right away. Hey, this is a safe space.

John Pearson: No, I know. Not the ones

Steve Kerschke: That popped in my head. We know most of these people.

Don Terry: Deb from the audience, which tree can fit in your hand?

John Pearson: Palm trees. Hey, oh my gosh, get out of here.

Don Terry: That’s a good one.

John Pearson: That’s really good. That’s really good. Now the trick is, now I don’t know, Deb, if you made that up, but that’s even more impressive. But what we’re trying to do is make one up too. Anybody got one? A summer joke? Summer joke?

Steve Kerschke: I love hearing your process of how you come up with it.

John Pearson: Well, this is horrible, but how do –

Steve Kerschke: What are your summer teeth?

John Pearson: Oh, what are your summer teeth? I want to hear the punchline for that.

Steve Kerschke: All right, Brenna, what do you got? She’s going to make us figure it out. Oh, that’s

John Pearson: Really good.

Steve Kerschke: Summer here and summer there.

John Pearson: Summer here and summer there.

Don Terry: We have a winner.

John Pearson: That’s really good. Yeah, that’s really good. Especially again, if you made that up, that is amazing. I mean, the only thing that I came up with was how did the beach pay his bills? With sand dollars. It was horrible. It’s horrible. But the way my brain goes when I do this is, so I think of everything related to summer. Summer’s broad. That’s harder. The more narrow it is, like if you would’ve said the beach, that would’ve been. Or a beach ball. That’s where my brain was going. It was beach balls. That’s what I was screening out. Lots of beach ball jokes. But that’s the way my brain quickly works is everything related to a beach, the tide, what does a beach wash his clothes with? Tide. Stupid. But that’s kind of where. And then you’re kind of. Guy laying on the beach is biting his tide.

Oh, biting his tide. See? There you go. See?

Steve Kerschke: Man, Don, I didn’t realize you had this skill.

John Pearson: Don, he’s exercised the muscle. All right. The game.

Steve Kerschke: Yeah, we have-

John Pearson: We’re going to do.

Steve Kerschke: Dohn, do you want to introduce the game while I do that? Don or John? I mean, I’m sorry, is it Pan or Pam? You guys remember that movie?

John Pearson: I don’t know what movie

Steve Kerschke: That is. Stepbrothers? No.

John Pearson: Pan.

Steve Kerschke: So the two stepbrothers, it’s Will Ferrell and the other guy from.

John Pearson: Oh yeah.

Steve Kerschke: Three names. Yeah, I forget his name. He’s got three names. They’re sitting in an interview and one’s behind the other, and the interviewer says the word Pam, and they’re like, “Oh, excuse me, sir. I’m so sorry. Is it Pan or Pam?” Pan.

Don Terry: Pam or Pan. Angel, thank you. Pan with a D.

Steve Kerschke: It’s hilarious.

John Pearson: Pan.

Steve Kerschke: Anyways.

John Pearson: All right, so Don really is good at this. So this game is called Punderdome. I don’t know if you can see that because it’s completely out of focus. How do we do that? Look at that. Punderdome. Look at this. I mean, even if I go to my face, it doesn’t come in. You have to trust me, it’s called Punderdome. And basically what you do is. Oh, it’s got jokes on the back here. Oh, I didn’t even know it had this. So it’s got what did the ocean call the sand after a fight?

Don Terry: Did you just pull that out?

John Pearson: I did. It was already laid out. And what are the odds of that?

Don Terry: That is pretty creepy.

John Pearson: Wow. What did the ocean call. Now, honestly, we did not even set any of this up. No. Obviously, somebody said summer. What did the ocean call the sand after a fight? A total beach. That’s pretty good. I forgot that that’s on the back. But on the front side, there are two completely unrelated words, and this game is called Punderdome. And so what you have to do is you have to come up with a pun linking the two unrelated words. So we pulled two out before we started today, and it was facial hair and fighting. So what we kind of did was came up with a setup for a joke, and then you have to have a punchline that incorporates facial hair and fighting. And Don came up with one, Why did the Boxer Win His Bout? His razor sharp skill. Oh, see?

Steve Kerschke: Right

John Pearson: There. Perfect. That was perfect. That was perfect. So good. So we’re going to try this for everybody.

Steve Kerschke: By the way, I’m going to transition towards the end. We put all these resources at the end. So Punderdome is listed. We have the two books that we referenced and the article that we referenced. So all this will come to you if you didn’t take notes and you do want to use it. The other thing I was going to mention is our clinicians use things like this in therapy all the time. So this I think is a terrific opportunity for an SLP to use in cognitive therapy, speech therapy if you’re using on voice, things like that. And you can make it easier, you can make it harder. So there’s a ton of just therapy related activity that can happen too. And even if in LifePath services, you just decide to play this game, there’s some social aspects that come up. So I would say from a clinical perspective, don’t be afraid to use games.

It’s built in therapy and then you can adjust it as you see fit. So really, by the way, John, I had this on my desk the other day. I probably had four people come in and take.

John Pearson: Oh yeah.

Steve Kerschke: People are always looking for new fun games.

John Pearson: Well, we’ve done that with people with right-sided strokes where humor becomes more difficult, so they’re very, very literal. And so I’ve seen. I’m trying to come up with two unrelated ones. Oh, these are good. Okay. Where they’ve used it with folks to try to, again, redevelop that sense of humor. Okay, so the two unrelated words that I drew were Elvis Presley and bathing. Elvis, Presley and bathing. So you have to come up with a pun or a joke that incorporates Elvis Presley.

Don Terry: My, you look fine in that blue suede boot. Bathing suit.

John Pearson: Blue suede bathing suit. See that? All right. All right. Right?

Steve Kerschke: So then

John Pearson: What does Elvis Presley swim in? A blue suede bathing suit.

Steve Kerschke: What was Elvis Presley’s favorite pickup line?

John Pearson: His –

Steve Kerschke: My you look fine in that blue suede bathing suit.

John Pearson: Bathing suit.

Steve Kerschke: So I’m better at the joke. That was good. I’m just Punchline

John Pearson: Yeah. So anyone else have a joke? Anyone else have a joke about Elvis Presley and bathing?

John Pearson: Again, I got to screen out all of the.

Steve Kerschke: John, this is at least PG-13.

John Pearson: Only I think this is funny. What is Elvis wash first? I can’t even say it.

Steve Kerschke: Come on, let’s go.

John Pearson: What does Elvis wash first in the shower? He’s pelvis. Yes.

Steve Kerschke: Right? All right. Deborah Clark, thank you for participating. Why did Elvis bring a towel to the bathroom? Because he heard blue suede shoes were supposed to be wet.

John Pearson: See? All right. There you go. Exercising that muscle. Nice. Anyone else got an Elvis and bathing. I mean, the pelvis one is right at the edge, so don’t go beyond that. Nobody go beyond that. Why did Elvis refuse to take a bubble bath? See, that’s funny. Just in and of itself, I don’t even need a punchline. All

Steve Kerschke: Right, Kelly.

John Pearson: Why didn’t he take a bubble bath? He refused it. He’s like, “Man, I’m not taking no bubble bath.”

Steve Kerschke: What if Kelly just signs off right now?

John Pearson: Because he didn’t want to get all shook up in the tub.

Don Terry: That’s good. I couldn’t come up with that. I had shook up, but I couldn’t execute it.

John Pearson: When we have to bathe, our dog, Mavis, hates a bath, and so you smear peanut butter on the… Anybody do that trick? Yeah. So I’m picturing –

Don Terry: We use a rubber glove.

John Pearson: Oh,

Don Terry: You just hold it. Hold a hand in front of her.

John Pearson: Oh, we smear it on the wall and she just licks it off miserably. She’s getting. I was picturing Elvis with peanut butter and bananas smeared up against the wall. How do you get Elvis to shower? You smear peanut butter and bananas on the wall.

Steve Kerschke: Here we go. What is Elvis’s favorite bath product?

John Pearson: I don’t know. Oh, somebody said I was going to say he left the building. Oh my gosh, they did say. All right. This is awesome. We have too many setups. So we need what his favorite bath product is.

Steve Kerschke: Can’t help falling in suds.

John Pearson: I can’t help falling in suds with you. Was there another song?

Steve Kerschke: What did Elvis say when someone complimented his swimsuit?

John Pearson: What did he say? Thank you for most. Thank you. Thank you very much. That’s really good. I think that’s a fitting wrap.

Steve Kerschke: Right.

John Pearson: What a way to end it.

Steve Kerschke: Oh, man.

John Pearson: And just to sign off, I’d like to say thank you. Thank you for most. Thank you.

Steve Kerschke: Well, we appreciate everyone joining in and participating. We hope you at least left with some nuggets from.

John Pearson: Left with something

Steve Kerschke: It’s weird. My head was like, “What joke can I make about a nugget? Maybe the golden nugget.” He was in Vegas, right?

John Pearson: Oh, look at that.

John Pearson: Chicken nugget. You like chicken nuggets? I don’t know if there were chicken nuggets in the ’70s but he would’ve loved them.

Steve Kerschke: In all honesty, we hope that you have some takeaways, and we always try to give some nuggets to take away and apply in real life. So that’s really important to us. But again, thank you, John. Thank you, John.

John Pearson: Yes, that was fun.

Steve Kerschke: We really appreciate you participating. Brie, welcome to your first webinar. And Laura, always good to have you. Actually, I think we’re off next month, right, John?

Don Terry: Yes.

Steve Kerschke: Nothing in July. We are off next month. Nothing in July. We are taking a break, but we will be back in August. And a quick reminder, as you sign off, you should get prompted for the feedback and you’ll get your CEU after that. The jokes

John Pearson: Are still coming. I love it. Keep them coming. They can just keep them coming later, can’t they? Email them if you come up with one later in the day.

Steve Kerschke: All right. Thanks, everyone.

John Pearson: Thanks, guys.

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